The Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 family of Standards (generally “802.11”) has gone through several iterations over the last decade. In some of the 802.11 standards, such as 802.11ah and beyond, the identity of the Basic Service Set (BSS) (e.g., as managed by an access point (AP) of the BSS) is indicated in a Physical Layer Convergence Procedure (PLCP) Protocol Data Unit (PPDU) by a set of bits that described the “color” of the BSS. The color of a BSS corresponds to an identifier (ID) of the BSS that is shorter than a BSS identifier (BSSID) defined by 802.11. The BSS color may be contained in the Physical Layer (PHY) Signal (SIG) field in a PHY header of a PPDU, whereas the BSSID is typically included in a media access control layer (MAC) portion of PPDUs. A device (e.g., an AP or client) in a BSS can determine whether a PPDU is from the BSS to which the device belongs (the “same-BSS”) or some other BSS (e.g., an overlapping BSS (OBSS)) by decoding the SIG field and interpreting BSS color bits included therein.
Spatial reuse aims to reduce the “exposed node problem” without significantly aggregating the “hidden node problem.” In theory, the “exposed node problem” and the “hidden node problem” cannot be resolved simultaneously, and thus increasing spatial reuse could potentially increase the number of hidden nodes. The “exposed node problem” occurs when transmit-side carrier sensing or receiver-side carrier sensing prevents frame exchange on the links, however the links could still be simultaneously active. In other words, the universal carrier sensing threshold may be too restrictive in the sense that concurrent transmission could still be successful under a certain interference level.